Yesterday, Thursday, April 17, 2003, we at the offices of Eyrie
Productions, Unlimited were informed of the death of Rachael L. Mayo,
known to us as the EPU Discussion Forum user
Rachie. Though she died over a month ago, time being what it
is on the Internet, we must absorb this news as though it had just
happened, for indeed, to us it has.

We did not know Rachael well. Her illness kept her participation
level on the Forum relatively low. However, her articulate posts were
always welcome and her fan art of
Reilael was highly regarded. She was well-spoken (or perhaps
"well-written" is more appropriate in the online sense) and positive.

To put it in a less clinical way, we didn't know Rachael well, but
we liked her. We're all stunned that she could be gone, for though we
knew she was ill, her own upbeat attitude kept us all from even
suspecting that it might be possible for her not to return to us.

It may be thought in poor taste for us to express our regrets this
way, using a meta-fictional persona; but it was, after all, the
characters of Neon Exodus Evangelion which brought Rachael to
Eyrie Productions in the first place, and so it seems only fitting
somehow that we be the ones to say goodbye to her on behalf of the
studio.

We know our words can alter nothing, and that our sentiments have
as little an effect, but we can do nothing other than offer them.
Rachael will be missed here at the Eyrie Productions studios, and our
deepest condolences go out to her family and loved ones. If we, who
knew her only casually, are in such pain at her death, we cannot
imagine what it must be like for those who knew her well, who were
close to her in the real world.

NXE co-creator and staff artist Lawrence "R-Type" Mann
has expressed the studio's feelings in artistic form, using
the design for Reilael, Cherub Friend of Destiny, developed by Rachael
herself.

Goodbye, Rachie. We will miss you.

On behalf of the cast and crew of Neon Exodus Evangelion, as
well as the real-world Eyrie Productions team, I am,